CELDF shares an eight-part video series highlighting their grassroots work with partner communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Oregon.

The series was completed in association with the Myrin Institute and with the support of the JustPax Fund.

Episode One: The Hill We Choose

(Grant Township, Pennsylvania)

In 2015, Grant voters adopted a new rights-based Home Rule Charter – a local constitution – and reinstating a court-overturned ban on injecting frack waste into the same ground from which they draw drinking water. In 2016, in a first-in-the-world action, the Township passed a law legalizing nonviolent direct action to protect the community from being poisoned if the courts again stripped them of their democratically enacted local law.

In 2017, Grant Township was sued by its own state “environmental protection” agency – the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Why would an environmental agency sue a community for attempting to protect their environment?

Answer: because the state protects corporate profits before people and ecosystems.